


“i know you’re a wolf”

by n0t_bess1e_b4ss_0n_the_b4ss



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Werewolf, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Cannibalism, Control Issues, F/M, Gwen and Merlin are best friends, Gwen is a werewolf, Gwen is still new to being a werewolf, Hopeful Ending, Loss of Control, Merlin is a sweetie, Merlin wouldn’t DIE for her, Purging, Vomiting, Werewolf!Gwen - Freeform, but Gwen eats a dead body, i swear she gets better, it’s okay though!! because, so if any of y’all see this as a shipping story I’ll vore your gallbladder :), technically it’s not cannibalism if the person is no longer human, they have a brother-sister relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-27
Updated: 2019-06-27
Packaged: 2020-05-20 12:54:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19377121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/n0t_bess1e_b4ss_0n_the_b4ss/pseuds/n0t_bess1e_b4ss_0n_the_b4ss
Summary: Lycanthropy was a double-edged sword. Incredible, but dangerous. Merlin didn’t care much for the research opportunities that came from having a werewolf best friend (unlike Gaius, who now has an entire journal dedicated to the moonlit lupine beasts), but he did think he was very lucky. Guinevere was one in a million and she had chosen HIM to be her packmate. Even her deciding not to rip out his esophagus with her powerful jaws yet felt like an honor (although he would still love her to death even if she did).But there was something Merlin had to learn real quick if he wanted to keep himself and, more importantly, Guinevere safe. Gwen was no longer human. She might sometimes look like it, but appearance was the only thing she retained ever since she was bitten. She smelled, tasted, heard, lived, and breathed like a wolf. It was her choice to stay here and risk being caught instead of going out into the woods to find an actual pack, so Merlin had to make up for that absence of lupine kinship.or: Gwen is a werewolf and still learning how to control the feral animal within





	“i know you’re a wolf”

Lycanthropy was a double-edged sword. Incredible, but dangerous. Merlin didn’t care much for the research opportunities that came from having a werewolf best friend (unlike Gaius, who now has an entire journal dedicated to the moonlit lupine beasts), but he did think he was very lucky. Guinevere was one in a million and she had chosen HIM to be her packmate. Even her deciding not to rip out his esophagus with her powerful jaws yet felt like an honor (although he would still love her to death even if she did).

But there was something Merlin had to learn real quick if he wanted to keep himself and, more importantly, Guinevere safe. Gwen was no longer human. She might sometimes look like it, but appearance was the only thing she retained ever since she was bitten. She smelled, tasted, heard, lived, and breathed like a wolf. It was her choice to stay here and risk being caught instead of going out into the woods to find an actual pack, so Merlin had to make up for that absence of lupine kinship.

Sometimes, he likes to think he’s the reason she hasn’t completely gone beast mode on Camelot yet. He keeps her grounded and he takes that to heart.

With that responsibility comes caution and care. Gwen may still try to act like a normal human, but she needed to be a beast every once and awhile. So, every month or so, she and Merlin trek out into the forest so she can stretch out her lupine legs and run around without the narrow halls or prying eyes of the castle restraining her.

Usually these trips are a lot of fun (although there’s only been three, so there’s not much to judge with), but this time? This time proved to Merlin that he very well should be afraid of the possibility of his best friend going feral.

See, Guinevere wasn’t feeling well in the first place. Even Morgana, who was still oblivious to the fact that her maid was actually a shapeshifting man-beast, noted how the young woman seemed jittery and jaded. That’s when Merlin proclaimed another trip to the forest, which Gwen easily brightened up at.

On the way to the woods, Gwen’s mind raged. Not in excitement for the long-awaited opportunity to run around as a wolf on dirt and not hard tile, but in the effort to keep her animal nature at bay. While she had been in the presence of castle, her mind was (mostly) clear throughout the day- perhaps due to the fear of being caught by Uther, which stamped down most wolffish instincts she had. However, now that that wall of authority no longer surrounded her, a war blazed within her. The grace period of getting used to lycanthropy has ended, and Gwen feels that if she stumbled for even a moment, she might lose her sense of self forever.

She growled at the inner evil trying to command her, and Merlin gazed down at her in confusion. At first, she wondered why; wolves growl all the time, not just because they’re angry or intimidated, so she could have easily played it off as one of her natural doggy sounds. But then she realized she has yet to shift, something she didn’t even notice because she already felt like a passenger in her own body.

At the first clap of dull thunder coming from the greying sky above, Gwen finally decides to pull her human plug and continue on in beast form.

The transformation she went through was the fastest yet. Bones snapped, fur grew, and organs rearranged at a record-breaking six seconds, unlike her regular ten or fifteen second shifts. She didn’t even feel the normal pain that came with morphing until a few heartbeats after she finished the process.

A shiver sprinted through Merlin. Seeing Gwen bend and crack and then snap back into prowling without hesitation made him think that perhaps the instincts of the animal she had become were controlling her more than she realized. Any rational human- or even man-beast- would have carefully gone through transformation to avoid damage (which COULD happen) and then take a moment to settle into the form and plan their further route on four legs or digitigrade feet. Gwen had plowed through the process without thought.

Perhaps, though, thought was no longer even possible to such an extent….Merlin thinks against this. Gwen’s consciousness had to have been intact, for it appeared- for the moment- she had a general idea of what she was going and where she was going. She still knew that they were out there for her and her alone.

For the moment….

When they arrived at their usual, peaceful little clearing for these trips, Gwen didn’t immediately go chasing after a bird. No, she tipped her snout up and sniffed the air. Then, she barked at Merlin and tossed her head towards her back. For a moment, the warlock is very confused.

“Do...you want me to get on?” He asked, slightly unsure.

Gwen barked again, so Merlin straddled her back as if she were a horse and not a wolf beast that could kill him with one swing of her deadly claws if she wanted to. Before he could ask what this was about or even get a proper grip on her fur, the werewolf catapulted forward, nearly launching her friend off of her back.

Headed straight for a cliff side, which dropped into another section of the woods below them, Merlin began to question Gwen’s sanity; however, she leapt at the last moment, although that still didn’t make this first time werewolf-riding any less traumatizing.

Merlin gripped onto Gwen’s scruff with the tightness of a drowning man clutching onto the edge of a boat, and the quake that jostled through both their bodies assured him that they had landed on something. But Gwen’s immobility did not last for long, for within the next moment, they were again airborne for another fleeting instant of terror.  It seemed, though, that, as Gwen’s animal senses had been heightened, she could detect a grove better and far more secretive than she could have ever discovered as a human.  And, Merlin had to admit, she did seem more agile and able within this state.

“I think you’re getting too comfortable in that body,” He had once said. It seemed as fitting now as it did when he had first said it- after he found Gwen just relaxing peacefully in her lupine form. But now her harmony with the body of the wolf seemed complete, almost natural. Yet this time….this time things were different.  

But the jerk of the next landing sent Merlin’s thoughts and upcoming worried internal monologue flapping away with the rustling leaves Gwen had disturbed upon her fall. Merlin looked about and saw an archway made of bark, where two branches of different trees had reached together and woven around the other.  It was a magnificent sight, for the trees around them were of some mysterious species that he had never seen the like of before. Boughs twisting elegantly about themselves, and their roots jutting up and out of the ground to curl around those near. Their green leaves, shaped as majestic crowns, whistled in the gentle winds. Above, the trees sprang into a canopy, as if shielding its very existence from the outside woodland world.

“How did you find this place?” Asked Merlin, impressed with the werewolf, yet rather worried.

No bark or growl replied. Instead, Gwen moved onward, totally aware of all her surroundings- but was she aware of her own mind?

Indeed, Gwen struggled, trying hard to concentrate as she propelled herself forward. She could feel her human conscious slipping farther away with every step she took. If she could not soon learn how to muzzle the inner animal and be the alpha out of the two of them, she feared she would lose her sanity forever. 

But when there came a faint odor upon the air, her mind fogged, and her last effort in fighting back the thoughts of the wolf failed.

All at once Gwen reared, and Merlin was thrown to the ground. Brown tumbled before his eyes, and he tossed back his bangs to watch in horror as Gwen excitedly sniffed at the air, drool pouring down the hairs of her chin. He could see one of her eyes at his angle, and what reached out from Gwen’s silver socket frightened him. An insane gaze of hunger, licking at the air it smelled.

He pushed back the fear, gaining his footing on the ground of the hidden forest. Slowly, he approached Gwen.  

“What do you smell?” He tried, hoping that his voice would force his best friend’s senses to return to her.

But her reply came in an angry growl, and though every bone, muscle, and nerve within Merlin screamed for him to back away...he moved closer.  

“Gwen...it’s Merlin. Your best friend. You’re okay. There’s nothing to be afraid of. I won’t let anything hurt you.”

And for a moment, the true eyes of the wolf seemed to flash with Merlin’s answer, but a savage darkness regained the animal quickly, and it sped off under the archway of the trees.

“No, Gwen! Wait!” Merlin cried, racing after the werewolf.

There were so many winding paths, closed in by the density of the woods, and Merlin soon found himself becoming lost. It seemed that the wood was a labyrinth, narrowing in some tunnels, others ending abruptly by rows of trees. Yet there were still few pathways for any visitor to stray through; though, as Merlin soon discovered, some of the roads twisted about into areas he thought looked the same as other places he had already passed. This forest...it felt like a place where humans should never roam.

Just as he thought he had lost himself completely within the woodland maze, Merlin heard the trickling of rushing water. He guided himself along by his ears until he spotted, between a patch of trees, a spring which filtered lightly along two small waterways. Along the muddy bank were paw prints far too big for a regular wolf. His companion wasn’t completely missing yet.

Even when the muddy prints disappeared after a dozen of long strides, Merlin was still able to follow Gwen’s trail with a quick flash of gold in his eyes. Like that, the tracks appear in the grass like fingerprints under a blue light.

Merlin did not have time to pat himself on the back for solving his missing werewolf problem. He needed to find out what had happened to Gwen. He doubted that the confusion of this place had bothered her ability to navigate, for it was in an animal’s nature to be able to sniff their way out of any dangerous circumstance. Yet, what was it that Gwen had smelled on the air? Merlin could detect no odor other than the scent of the rain sticking to the leaves and bark in the cold evening air. Although, he had nowhere near the amount of olfactory cells she had, so it was no wonder he didn’t catch onto what she noticed.

Merlin no longer had to rely on his magic-conjured path when he heard a shuffling noise coming from further ahead. In an upcoming clearing, the caramel brown werewolf was hunched over some object.  Merlin approached slowly as to not startle her, but when he came to Gwen, he was the one who was horrified.

Gwen crouched over long dead travelers, the smell of their clothes and hair and flesh a putrid perfume. Merlin nearly vomited but he composed himself within an instant. What exactly did Gwen think she was doing? Her jaws ripped at the leather armor and garments covering one ancient man, the rotting flesh exposed to the cooling rain that continued to drench their bodies.

“Do you know what you’re doing? Don’t you dare!” Merlin yelled, running up to her.

Gwen turned and, lowered on her haunches, growled insanely at his figure. Merlin halted mid-step and backed away only a few paces. His friend had truly become deranged, he could see.

“Stop that right now! You’re not like this! This isn’t you!”

Gwen ignored his presence and dug her maw into the decayed flesh. He tore at all her teeth could reach, feasting upon the dead victim with a passion that scared Merlin.  How would he ever….

“Guinevere, do you understand what you’re doing? You have to stop right now. If you don’t, you’ll just be another monster, just like the rest of your kind.”

Merlin didn’t mean for his words to come out like shards of glass, but maybe the harshness of his tone would make Gwen realize what exactly she was scarfing down and bring back her human mind.

It didn’t.

No, instead, Gwen snarled like a wild dog with rabies. She flexed her claws in the dirt before rising up on her hind legs to her full height, easily towering over Merlin at six feet. Even in the dull, grey lighting of the rainstorm, her eyes still glinted with the ferocity and hunger of a feral beast.

For a long moment Merlin wondered who he was even looking at anymore. Was that Gwen? Or was it the wolf? Had she lost herself to the beast within? It seemed that way, with all her finery in tatters on the ground and her jaws dripping with gore.

And yet? He held out his hand. He held back a flinch as blood dripped to his fingers and palm, held tight to the fur on her back with the other arm as red smeared up across the pelt. He held her face, held his breath, and held tight to all the courage he could muster.

The beast he was clinging onto let out a long, guttural snarl that vibrates Merlin’s ribcage as he’s pressed against the thing’s underbelly. Black claws raise up and hover mere inches away from his back. He feels blood and drool and maybe some foam drip onto his head and run in gooey trails down the back of his neck.

The deadly claws flex, just barely tear the fabric of his shirt, and then fall down limply to the lycanthrope’s side.

Gwen, and Merlin was sure now that it was still Gwen, stooped down to press her head to his chest. Though mute in this form, he could see the grimace on her mouth and imagine the words she was longing to say.

**_“I’m sorry”_ **

It has taken Merlin this long to realize a creature covered in fur should not be shaking this badly.

Merlin gently strokes one of his quivering hands over the top of Gwen’s head. He murmurs to her softly and it doesn’t matter how soft he speaks because he knows she will always hear him soothing her.

For a long time, warlock and wolf stay tangled in an embrace. Eventually, though, Gwen pulls away so she can revert forms and be free from this lupine insanity that shrouds her mind.

The transformation is as painful and quick as the first one that day, but it leaves behind more throbbing and burning in her exhausted muscles. She blinks away black spots and then shook her head, like she was trying to expel the remnants of her feral thoughts. Ironically, she’s not trembling in the form with flesh and barely any intact clothing.

“Are you all right?” Merlin asked. The rain is beginning to lessen its brutality as it lashed against their bodies.

Gwen did not respond. Instead, her face became rather pale, which was impressive given her dark skin tone in this form. More concerned than curious, Merlin raised a hand as if to draw her attention up to his eyelevel. However, in that moment, Gwen buckled to the opposite side, a line of vomit splattering from her lips. She sunk to her knees, clutching her stomach. As she rocked herself, Merlin placed a hand against her forehead.

“I’m not feeling that great,” Gwen gurgled through cringing lips.

“You’re not kidding.” Merlin said, “Must have been...”

He stopped because Gwen retched again, so she most likely didn’t want to be reminded of what exactly she had done in her feral state. It didn’t help that she was still wet with blood, gore, and goop from decayed human flesh. She vomits once more.

“I’m just gonna...sit here for a moment.” She panted.

“That’s alright.” Merlin assured her, rubbing her back and quickly pulling her messy hair out of the way. “It’s okay, Gwen, it’s okay. Just get it out.”

She was trying. She was trying really hard but it came to a point where her body felt like it didn’t need to throw up anymore and was ready to start feeling normal again. But she wasn’t ready. She became so desperate to purge the human flesh from her stomach that she half-mutated one of her arms and shoved lupine fingers down her throat just to make herself vomit again.

“Gwen!”

Merlin grabbed both of her wrists, feeling one of them shift back to normal beneath his fingers. Gwen is crying, struggling to breathe over an oncoming panic attack that’s taking over her mind, just like the inner wolf had.

“It’s okay, Gwen. It’s okay. It’s over now. Nobody is going to hurt you, I promise.”

Gwen whimpered and shook her head as tears spilled over.

“Other people aren’t going to be the ones doing the hurting.”

Those words burned Merlin’s heart like how silver burned his best friend’s flesh. He stared at her in disbelief as she sobbed below him.

“It’s like I was hallucinating,” Gwen started softly, “I couldn’t control myself anymore. I smelled meat and thought I saw something, so I went after it. Merlin, I was _hunting_ them.”

Merlin expected a lot of things when Gwen opened up like this. He expected explanations of nightmares. He expected dark reaches into the worse parts of her lupine mind. He expected guilt and anxiety and paranoia and other crippling effects from lycanthropy.

But never had he expected his best friend to question herself. Her strength. Her sanity.

“Oh god, Merlin, I’m a _monster_. I’m no different than the other wolves!”

“Don’t say that.” Merlin said firmly, “You are not them.”

“I chased the people I saw,” Gwen whispers hoarsely, “I chased them to the ends of this place and they _ran_ from me. They were scared of me.”

This was not okay. Merlin wanted to find whatever evil within his friend was making her feel this way and destroy it with his bare fingers. Gwen was forced to kill. Some people...some people never recover from that alone, but added with the unpredictable animal instincts she now bears must be making that terror haunting.

“You won’t be like that.” Merlin assured her. “It’s alright. I promise.”

“No,” Gwen croaked, shaking her head softly. “No, no it’s…s’not alright, is it? For you to be-”

“Gwen, honey,” Merlin interrupted softly with a sigh; they’ve had this conversation many times ever since Gwen contracted lycanthropy, and it always boiled down to the same thing. It killed Merlin that Gwen felt this guilty over something she couldn’t even control. Sure, it scared him sometimes, but that just happened normally. It was more than worth what he gained in return.

Today, though, it seemed that Gwen was in no mood to listen to his calm but firm counterpoints, especially after what she had done. She pushed away from Merlin and turned around so he wouldn’t have to see her pained expression, vigorously shaking her head.

“No, listen! You don’t-” Her eyes shone in the grey light, glistening, “you don’t deserve this! Risking your life every time I shift because I haven’t learned how to control it yet.”

The self-deprecating words weren’t really anything new, but the situation as a whole was, and it shocked Merlin into silence and stillness- he sat back, hands limply at his sides, and he could only watch as Gwen practically launched into a tirade.

“You don’t deserve any of this,” She groaned ruefully, one hand gripping in her hair and the other scratching at her thigh with lupine claws, “and neither do I but it’s too bloody late for that, too late for me but you- you deserve better than this, Merlin, you deserve-” She choked off for a second, unable to meet Merlin’s eyes anymore; her gaze dropped to the dirt in front of her, her hands falling into her lap as she slumped.

“You deserve better than me.”

Merlin remained shocked. Remained still, remained silent. For a moment longer. Then, he spoke.

“No, you listen,” Merlin whispered, practically hissed as he leaned forward and he couldn’t even realize he was crying as well but that was the least of his concerns right now. “ _I. Don’t. Care._ I’m here for a reason. I’ve told you before and I’ll tell you again: I’m not going anywhere because I’ll calm you down a hundred times if it meant-“

“Mer-”

“No,” Merlin shook his head, “No, just listen for another moment first, please, because I need to say that I don’t care about any of it, because I love you.”

Gwen’s shoulders shook and she failed to bite back a hiccup and sob.

“I love you,” Merlin repeated softly with the affectionate, soothing tone of a caring brother, “and I don’t care about anything else- not a damn other thing in the world, because I love you, and you say I deserve better? Better than you?” He laughed, wiping a palm heavily underneath an eye that threatened to spill over. “Good luck, darling, because there is nothing better than you. Not for me. You’re the best there is.”

Gwen could feel the tears thick in the back of her throat, a different dull tightness from the choking fear she had felt a little A weak little noise forced its way up from inside her chest, from deep down in the pit of guilt and fear that lived at her core and broke all of the tension in her body. Teetering forward against him, Gwen started to cry quietly into Merlin’s collarbone, trying to stifle most of the sounds she was making. Her hands tightened in cotton fabric as her best friend’s arms wrapped solidly around her back, pulling her closer. She could feel Merlin press his face into her messy mane of hair and hear his quiet, sniffling breaths.

“Shh, I know, Gwen. I know. But it’s over now,” Merlin whispered, rubbing slow, deliberate circles into her back. “It’s over.”

“I’m so glad you’re okay,” Gwen whispered back. “I don’t know what I’d do if I-“

“It’s not going to happen,” Merlin answered definitely. “I’m okay and you’re going to be okay too, Gwen. You’ll see.”

If it were anyone else speaking these words to her, Gwen would have never believed them. But Merlin was different. And maybe, just maybe, one day she would be able to see herself the same way he saw her


End file.
